Will allergy-free peanut be a reality soon?

Researchers are working to create an allergy-free peanut. (Adam Gault / Caiaimage)

Kay ManningChicago Tribune

For her daughter's sake, Dr. Ruchi Gupta would love to have a "safe" peanut.

The director of the Food Allergy Outcomes Research Program at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, and all those connected to the 2.8 million peanut-allergy sufferers in the U.S., might get that wish in the not- too-distant future. Moreover, while the number of those with the allergy that can turn deadly in seconds has doubled in the last two decades, researchers are learning how to lessen the problem in children or keep them from developing it in the first place.

"It's phenomenal the amount of research being done since I started 12 years ago," Gupta said. And while she's excited at the number of new ideas being presented, the pace can be problematic.

"We've been flip-flopping on whether and when to introduce peanuts," she said, "making it challenging for parents to know what's right."

It used to be simpler — children should avoid peanuts until about age 3. But that advice was turned on its ear last year by a large British study that found eating peanuts from infancy helped reduce the risk of an allergy, which usually is a lifelong diagnosis.

That research led the National Institutes of Health, earlier this year, to suggest peanut proteins should be introduced at 4 to 6 months of age to not-at-risk infants. They could be fed thinned peanut butter, peanut puffs or powdered peanut butter to avoid a choking hazard.

It's a little trickier — but still possible — to introduce peanuts to children more at risk because of eczema or a family history of allergy. They're the ones who can really benefit, Gupta says, by lowering the chance of a reaction, ranging from death to difficulty breathing to swelling of the tongue, eyes and face.

Researchers have identified two of numerous proteins in peanuts as the prevalent allergens and now are trying to lessen their amounts — creating "safe" peanuts — or to overcome their negative effects by training the immune system not to adversely react to them.

Dr. Brian Vickery and others at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine capitalized on two facts — that the levels of antibodies to attack peanut allergens are lowest in young children, and allergies tend to take hold in the first or second year of life — to test a form of oral immunotherapy. For more than two years, they gave low doses of peanut powder to one group and a higher dose to a second group of children ages 9 to 36 months who were peanut-allergic, and found nearly 80 percent had "sustained unresponsiveness" when exposed a month after treatment stopped.

That lack of an allergic reaction meant the children could safely start eating peanut products, but further studies are needed to see how long the "sustained unresponsiveness" lasts, Vickery said.

"We don't know if the kids are cured, but they appear not to be allergic either," Vickery said. "We're pretty optimistic, but we're not advising that they throw away their EpiPens."

Early treatment was the goal because peanut allergies grow worse in 80 percent of sufferers as they age, even if they avoid peanuts, he said.

"Why wait until they've developed a fear and aversion to peanuts? If a child had a vision problem, we wouldn't wait to fix it," said Vickery, who is affiliated both with UNC and a pharmaceutical company involved in the research.

Other immunotherapy products are being tested for use on the skin through patches, sublingually with lozenges or drops, and in shots.

Researchers also are looking at modifying peanuts. Kit McQuiston, CEO of Alrgn Bio, believes his company is about two years away from offering peanuts in which 98 percent of the allergens have been deactivated. The change results from soaking shelled peanuts in a food-grade enzyme solution.

Still, the peanut isn't being developed for those with allergies, but rather for everyone in what he calls the concentric circles around the allergic person — in schools, stadiums, cafeterias, airplanes, etc.

"We're creating a safer environment," he said. "We can't replace all jars of peanut butter, but if we create a new food category, using safer peanuts, parents wouldn't have the same angst."

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